QUARTZ
FROM THE
UPLANDS

QUARTZ from the UPLANDS

Who Say? “All songs have been sung;

All tales have been told;

Live tongues are still’d—

Worn smooth by precedent!”

In the fullness of the soul

There lives—strong bound—

Only to be unloos’d by greater deed and action;

An unfathomable wealth

From which to draw forever—

Never to be wholly used.

Is it for you

To stand at the bier of the dead past

Mute—to consent, that:

“All! has been sung and writ”?

No! Insistingly, Persistently beat loud upon thetemple door—steeled well to hear the mock and din and laughter andderiding, doubting shouts of those within,

That you may full awake the throng without—

Those who sleep, work, hope and pray.

You must proclaim again, again,

This Truth!

The multitude at last will stand aghast, amazed, ashamed;

Thy liberty deny,

Yea, crucify.

To them:—What is, is; and what is, is to remain unchanged forever.

To learn the lesson, to equip and grade thy purging fire;

Go forth to some unfrequented spot

And reason with thyself, comparing notes with Nature.

See it. Feel it. Hear it.

The all-prevailing, pervading, constant, ever changing. FromWinter’s silence, breathing, sighing, sleeping, creeping on to Spring with sap,with shoot, with bud and flower, hour on hour playing, plying gentleness andpower for Summer’s rest to temper strength for birth in Autumn, with crowningbrilliancy and rich rewards untaxed to bird, to beast, to insect and to man,gift on gift for full contentment, sustenance and labor.

From this you will accumulate a store so full,

That every thought’s a prayer;

The simplest acts of things are miracles—

The whole a revelation,

To guide thy way and being.

Kill not, dissect not, nor rend or tear,

But see and feel and hear.

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